House GOP rolls dice on debt limit

After a few weeks of vote searching — and a good deal of soul searching — House Republicans say they think their best hope of raising the debt ceiling is to tie it to restoring pension cuts for retired soldiers.

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John Boehner on Debt Ceiling

The most recent strategy — unveiled in a private Monday night meeting in the Capitol — is meant to maximize Republican support, while daring Democrats to vote against restoring military benefit cuts. The vote is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, but top Republicans concede the bill might never make it to the floor — they won’t bring up a bill that won’t pass. Republicans cannot pass it by themselves, and Democrats likely won’t help push it over the edge. Senior Senate sources say it is likely a nonstarter in their chamber — they’ve constantly advocated for a debt-limit hike without extraneous policy provisions. On Monday, the Senate advanced a fix to military cost-of-living adjustments on its own, by a whopping 94-0.

There’s not much time to get this all straight. The Treasury Department says the debt limit must be lifted by Feb. 27. Congress gavels out of session Wednesday and does not return until Feb. 25.

While Democrats sit stunned that this play took two weeks of planning, many in GOP leadership call this move a bridge — a way to show the rank and file that they will fight, but a clean debt limit vote is the only real way out of this mess. Top Republicans circled the floor Monday night to see if they had the support to pass this bill. Things did not look terribly promising, according to several sources in the process.

And just like that, the House Republican Conference that vowed to avoid fiscal fights and focus on unifying issues finds itself enmeshed in the throes of a mini-crisis. No one believes the federal government runs the risk of defaulting on its debt — and that makes this fight even more telling. Even when Republicans have removed default from the equation, they still cannot help fighting.

The decision by Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy to move forward with this plan was dictated by a fractured Republican conference that declined to coalesce around anything else. After weeks of trying, top Republicans discovered the party couldn’t pass any debt ceiling without Democratic support. The GOP had a long menu of items for its choosing, including pairing a debt limit increase with the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, changes to Obamacare and a nine-month patch to the Medicare reimbursement rate for doctors. It mattered precious little that most of these proposals would’ve died in the Senate.

They eventually settled on this plan, which is paid for by extending the mandatory sequester for one more year. The bill essentially strips Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-Wash.) budget deal of its deficit reduction centerpiece and replaces it with other savings. There’s also language that creates a fund to facilitate the long-term reform of the Sustainable Growth Rate — the reimbursement rate for doctors who treat Medicare patients, colloquially known as the “doc fix.”

This exercise — most Republicans concede that’s all it is — is causing rifts within their own ranks. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) told POLITICO he thought the plan was “awful.” Asked if he didn’t like it because it did not contain budget cuts, he said, “Yes, but I can keep going if you’d like.” Other GOP lawmakers simply don’t want to vote for a debt limit increase. Republican leadership notes that the loudest voices in opposition to this plan have no plan of their own that could pass the House and would vote against a debt limit bill no matter what it contained.

There are concerns that this is bad politics across the board. Lawmakers have to choose between two toxic votes: increasing the debt limit or keeping military pension cuts. Several Republican lawmakers pointed out that this package puts Senate candidates in a bad place: The GOP has Senate hopefuls in Reps. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Steve Daines (Mont.) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.).

Because the House Republican Conference is hardly unified, the bill’s fate rests partially in Democratic hands. Senate Democratic sources say this is a nonstarter, but they don’t expect Boehner to pass it. House Democratic sources concede some might vote for it if it ever makes it to the floor, but most are making clear their preference for a clean bill.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Congress should address the COLA issue in stand-alone legislation.

“I think we’re all pushing for a clean debt ceiling,” Schiff said. “I don’t think we should attach any conditions to it. I think there would probably be a lot of support independently to fix the military COLAs. But I don’t think there is much desire to establish a precedent that either party can exact changes by holding up the good faith and credit of the United States.”

Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said Democrats have to stay unified.

“I think we need a clean debt ceiling vote,” Larsen said. “We have to stay consistent, not just because we’re Democrats, but because the U.S. government needs to stay consistent and send a message to the rest of the world, again, that we don’t play around with the debt ceiling.”

Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a veteran, said she’s worried Republicans are using the military as pawns.

“I’m going to wait and see what they put out there, but I’m very concerned that we’re using our retirees as a pawn and that we’re taking from other members of the military,” Duckworth said.